Working hard...

What is group of working dogs called?  A Business?  A Corporation?  A Wrassle?

Frankly with the inclusion of Cinnamon, we are being very generous in the use of the word "Working."

One week back in the saddle...

So I have resumed my 4HB program, after being in a sort of maintenance mode (besides losing most of July to a Pancake and Rum binge.)  July was a bad month. 10 lbs of indulgence and self pity.

However, since I restarted last week I have lost 6.4 lbs already.  That is with just cutting out processed carbs from my diet again.  One cheat day on Saturday*.

I have modified the diet a bit.  There is a similar program put forth in It Starts with Food by Melissa and Dallas Hartwig.  Like the 4HB it is basically a modified Paleo diet.   I found their explanations excellent, but as one friend pointed out they are a fair amount preachy.  However I particularly like how the explained that there is no food Switzerland.  All food is either net beneficial or net harmful.  Twinkies are harmful (not that I eat Twinkies.)  They break down the food is to satisfying one of four criteria, if it doesn't meet it... you don't eat it.  (go read the book if you want to know about the criteria)

Some key differences between their program and the 4HB:

No legumes of any sort, including lentils, kidney beans, and peanuts (which means no PB)
No seed or nut based oils (not a big deal I mostly cook with olive or coconut oil already)
No cheat days.  They recommend 30 days start without any cheat days whatsoever.  In fact they reckon that once you make it past the 30 days you won't need any cheat days.
No Red Wine, in fact they go so far as to suggest cutting all alcohol out of your diet forever.
Fruit is allowed, and even encouraged.
Processed proteins such as whey protein are Verboten.

In any case I am switching to that eating model, but keeping the cheat days, and maybe the protein powder in the form of fruit smoothies in the morning (otherwise realistically I won't have any breakfast.)

I'll give it 30 days with and see how I feel.



*Cheat day is sort of a misnomer.  I actually still am not going crazy on Saturdays.  In this case the only thing different was I got an eclair from the coffee shop Saturday morning.  Otherwise it was perfectly normal food day.

Aaaaand we're back

So here we are again.

Lets get some questions out of the way, shall we?

Why Go Dark?
I had series of personal, financial, and professional events that derailed me and I didn't think it was good idea for me to be blogging at that time.

So things are better now?
Actually probably worse.

So why restart the blog?
I have been strictly forbidden to go on a homicidal, suicidal, or any other -idal based rampage. So I figure I might as well start sharing the random thought my head produces with you again.

Are you still in Architecture school? Is the blog title going to change? Who is your pick for the Superbowl?
Whoa whoa whoa! So many questions! One at a time.

Architecture school is on hold for at least two years (unless something magical happens.) I may however be starting up IT courses in January so in a few months you will see me making cranky noises about subnet masks instead of masses.

I was tempted to change the title of the blog. But frankly everything I came up with sounded either whiny and self-pitying OR revealed to much about my master plan to take over the world. For now the title stays.

Superbowl? DIEINAFIREKTHNXBYE

So what ARE you going to write about?
Technology, geek life in cowboy-land, progress with the studio (or lack there of), weight loss (new program starts today,) and whatever else strikes my fantasy.

What about the dating thing? We want salacious details!
I appear to have better odds of winning the Superbowl, K? Besides this isn't MySpace, get your mopey schadenfreude elsewhere.

Got any other questions?  Post em below.

Kenpo review...

After each belt passed there is a review session where you go back over the preceding belts.  As each belt gets harder and more belts are behind you the review sessions get longer and longer.  Since I passed my 3rd brown all we've been doing is reviewing and have only made it through 3 1/2 belts.

However, the worrisome part is tonight's review was of Blue belt and it feels like I am seeing some of the these techniques for the first time...  2 years since I tested off that belt and clearly I have not practiced it enough since then.

Damnation.

I should note that this review period is also taking much longer then the preceding ones because Chris isn't just teaching me the technique, now he is teaching me how to teach each of the techniques as well; variants, problems to watch for and ways of adapting to individual students are all covered.

However, for 3rd brown I started recording Chris doing the techniques properly, and then going back over and watching that belt over and over again and transcribing each of the steps.  I also film myself doing the same techniques, and watch the film of myself making corrections as I go along (this was really helpful for 3rd brown katas.)  I have started to do so for these belt reviews as well.  So far I have recorded Gold, Orange and tonight I got Purple, but have only transcribed Gold.

Here's an example from my 3rd Brown notes, with my abbreviations unabbreviated :

Bending the Limb

Aggression: Cross Wrist Grab (Right Hand described, works for either side)

Right Hand makes a small circle to the inside and up, lifting attackers arm to shoulder Level and you re-grab. Step in Left Foot to forward stance and strike attacker’s ribs with horizontal elbow while rotating into horse stance perpendicular to attacker, Left Hand rises up and clears attacker’s arm with a downward hooking back-fist, pivot into a forward stance and Right Hand shoots forward to palm-strike face.

Perils of online dating - Craigslist Edition

On a lark I posted an ad on craigslist.

Time to first spammer: 2 Minutes
Time to first offer to see "sexy pictures": 4 minutes
Time to first broken English attempt to get me to click a suspicious link: 7 minutes

It's been up for 45 minutes and I have received 7 e-mails, none legitimate.

Why Dating sucks... (A numbers game)

This is semi-cross posted on facebook, and a couple of you have already heard me sound off on this, but bear with me because I have refined the number a bit.

Recently I watched an interesting BBC documentary on science of attraction, where they brought together a bunch of psychologists, anthropologist, etc to design a program for predicting what people find attractive. The factored in compatibility of interest, similarity of features, and each researcher had their pet theories of what was going on in the study participants head. They were all wrong.

Overwhelmingly they found that initial impression was set by one thing only and it was different for the sexes.

For men: Waist to hip ratio.

For Women: Height.

The other factors had a contribution to the long rating of their opposites, but generally an initial opinion was set, and didn't vary by more then 10%+/- after that.

The part that is relevant for me is generally women are looking for men that are ~5" taller than them and 3-4 years older.   Sadly... statistices does not back up the point in having hope.

You see, Bozeman has ~30,000 people according to the city manager. Using the last last census 23% are between 25-44. With an average martial rate of 44.9% (we'll call it 45%) leaving 3795 single people, of whom ~52.6% are men, leaving 1838 possible single women, cut out the 15% smokers and the 10% of the population with serious pet allergies 1405 is starting to look pretty bleak.

If we also rule out those that the NIMH classifies as having a "serious" mental health issue which is apparently 5% of the female population

That leave 1335 potential ladies to meet.
If we are generous and include the women who are an inch shorter then I am (52.4%) of thee population then there are 699 single women meeting the very *minimum* standards, not factoring for common interests or anything similar.

That is a 2.5% chance.  That is the optimistic number.   

I'm not going to calculate the what the "optimal" height and age match is because I would probably make me want to crawl under the covers and never leave again.

Comments back to normal (ish)

So last night an obnoxious twit was spamming the comments.

Turns out there is no real tools to blacklist commentators or IP ranges.

So comment moderation is turned on now.

Please continue about your snarky posting.

Spammer Begone.

Comments Disabled for the foreseeable future.

Saturday non-post.

Didn't weight myself.  Didn't do my exercises.  Spent the morning at work doing an upgrade to our server that did not fix the problem the engineers promised me it would.  I am drinking rum, not enjoying my newly minted single status and being propositioned by cowgirls online.

Some days I wonder why I get our of bed.

Oh that's right, because the dog will go out at 8am or bad things happen to the carpet.

Saturday Goal Reached (mostly)

I have have confession to make.  I didn't quit hit my goal.  I missed it by .2 lbs.  Now, if you guys really want to see a picture of me in my swimming trunks in all my hairy glory I'll post is but .2  pounds is close enough for me to call this part of the plan a success.

So I have lost 29.8 lbs over 95 days, which is a loss of 10.5 of my body-weight and an average of .31 lbs a day.

And although I nearly stalled completely the last couple of weeks, thanks to illness, I suspect those numbers will start getting much better as the HIIT starts to happen every other day.  (Right now it's two days a week.)

That's about all my news.  I'm off for apple filled crepes to celebrate.